The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
The size of
the MOD’s proposed transfer from its non‑cash budget reflected a
deliberate
attempt by
the MOD to exploit the opportunities offered by the Government’s
transition
from cash
accounting to Resource Accounting and Budgeting.
The
increase in the size of the MOD’s cash requirement during September
reflected the
inability
of the MOD to produce reliable estimates of its cash
requirement.
There are
no indications that the controls imposed on the MOD by the Treasury
in
September
2003 constrained the military’s ability to conduct operations in
Iraq.
60.
Section 9.8
describes the Government’s repeated reassessments of its
strategy
for Iraq.
Those strategies tended to focus on describing a desired end state,
rather
than how
it would be reached.
61.
None of those
strategies considered the resources that the Government
would
need to
commit to achieve those end states and (at a strategic level) how
those
resources
should be allocated.
62.
In the absence
of a strong strategic framework, spending on military operations
in
Iraq was
driven by a series of decisions on UK force levels and on the
equipment that
should be
provided to the Armed Forces.
63.
The Inquiry
concludes in Section 9.8 that, from July 2005 onwards, decisions
in
relation to
resources for Iraq were made under the influence of the demands of
the UK
effort in
Afghanistan.
64.
Allocations
for civilian activities were driven by the FCO’s and DFID’s
willingness
and ability
to reprioritise from within their departmental budgets and their
ability to secure
additional
funding from the Reserve and the GCPP.
65.
The direct
cost to the UK Government of its intervention in Iraq between
2002/03
and 2009/10
was at least £9.2bn in cash terms (the equivalent of £11.83bn in
2016),
comprising:
•
£8.20bn (89
percent of the total direct cost) on military
operations;
•
£0.58bn (6
percent) on humanitarian and development assistance;
•
£0.30bn (3
percent) on diplomatic representation; and
•
£0.16bn (2
percent) from the inter‑departmental pools.
66.
There are no
indications that the Government questioned the balance of
funding
between
military operations and civilian activities, or considered what the
most effective
balance of
effort might be to achieve the UK’s strategic
objectives.
67.
Lord Boateng
told the Inquiry that the imbalance in funding between
military
operations
and civilian activities had arisen “partly as a result of the
funding mechanism
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